Poverty Of The Mind – Tales Of The Ghanaian Politician

There’s poverty (lack of money) and then there’s poverty of the mind, (availability of money, but lack of contentment and presence of fear that if you don’t stockpile wealth even when you don’t need to, you’ll suddenly become poor again). The kind that Ghanaian politicians have.

Tell me why someone will steal public funds for 8 years as a Member of Parliament, amass a multitude of pensions and gratuities, then become a Minister of State to continue the plundering in the name of constituency projects. They amass so much wealth but it never seems to be enough.

And that to me is poverty of the mind. You can take a man out of poverty by giving him life-changing money but you can’t take his mind out of the poverty that beguiles it to think that the only way to stay wealthy is to steal more to the point of a megalomaniac lifestyle that benefits no-one.

A lot of our politicians are suffering from poverty of the mind and that’s a real problem. It is what drives them only participate in politics for self-interest. These people live in the best houses, drive the best cars, are amongst the highest paid in the world but yet, it never seems to be enough.

They must steal more, plunder more, divert public funds if they don’t do this their minds is still able to convince them that they are poor. It is not surprising though, a lot of them came from poor backgrounds and it is always at the back of their minds.

They are still controlled by this fear of poverty even when everything around them points otherwise.

Think about it.